bestow what he himself never possessed. The great poet, in pouring out
his feelings, must always give something less and something _more_ than
was in him at the time.

It has been the fashion to illustrate the principle of leaving something
to the imagination, by the ancient picture of the sacrifice of
Iphigenia, where we are told that Agamemnon, the father, was painted
hiding his face in his robe. The expression of grief and horror had been
given in the countenance of the other bystanders, and it was left to the
imagination to divine what passion would have been seen depicted on the
face of Agamemnon if that robe had been torn aside. Lessing, and after
him M. Girardin, have indeed given a different account of the intention
of the painter. The Greek artist, say they, sedulously avoided that
distortion of features through excessive grief, which was incompatible
with beauty of form. They would _tone down_ the expression, as Lessing
argues that the sculptor did in the features of Laocoon, until it became
consistent with the lines of beauty. Timanthes, therefore, finding that,
in order to render with fidelity the expression of Agamemnon, he must
admit such a distortion of the features as would violate the rule, chose
rather to veil the countenance. But we would suggest that something else
must have weighed with the artist; for if it was an acknowledged
principle of Greek art rather to sacrifice a portion of the passion, so
to speak, than to admit a distortion of the features, why should
Timanthes have felt any scruple, in this instance, in modifying the
expression of the father's countenance in obedience to a known rule of
art? Why should he have thought himself obliged to resort to the
expedient of concealing the face?

We make bold to adopt neither one account nor the other. We neither
believe that Timanthes concealed the expression of the father's face
upon some principle of "leaving it to the imagination of the reader,"
nor that he acted in obedience to the rule of art which Lessing lays
down with so much ingenuity. We are persuaded that Timanthes painted
Agamemnon in the attitude he did, simply because it was the most
natural--because it was, in fact, the only attitude in which it was
possible to conceive a father present at the sacrifice of his own
daughter. Other spectators might have looked on with different degrees
of grief or horror, but we feel that the father could not _look_; he
must veil his head. This natur